Blackberries and Bruises
by silver-sunn101
Summary: Over the lonely summer, Draco and Hermione find each other unexpectantly and fall in love! Its short and sweet and better than it sounds I promise, its my first fic so R&R please! COMPLETE


A/N: Hey this is my first fic so please R&R!! I'm still trying to get used to the whole uploading thing, its taking a while, but I think I've got the hang of it! I'm a huge Draco/Mione fan, so I had to add to the list of them! Constructive criticism is ok, just no flames please!!!  
  
~Draco~  
  
Draco winced as he heard his father yelling at his mother. She had done something wrong, again. 'I'm tired of this crap' he thought as he pulled a deep green pullover over his blonde head, and started downstairs to leave the Malfoy Manor. Paired with his silvery gray slacks, anyone aware of Hogwarts houses would be able to tell which he was from.  
  
Luckily for Draco, he lived near a tiny muggle village so he didn't have too many chances of that bitter recognition. He actually was fond of muggles, quite like Dumbledore himself actually. it was his father that hated the muggles. Draco was just forced to do what his father wished. Force being how Lucius Malfoy got everything he desired, that and bribery and blackmail.  
  
Draco didn't like being in Slytherin for that matter, either. He hated how cold hearted they were, and how the only reason any of them talked to him was their fear of what he would do to them if they didn't recognize him. Draco only wanted recognition from one person.  
  
A muggle-born too, his father would love that. A bushy-haired Gryffindor to exact. 'No one can know who she is, for her safety and mine. nice world we got here.' He thought bitterly as he started on the second staircase from his 3rd floor bedroom about the size of a small house.  
  
"DRACO!" came the emotionless voice of Lucius Malfoy. Draco followed his fathers' voice to his father's office (which is a very hard task in the Malfoy Manor).  
  
"Yes, Sir?" Draco asked tensely, not wanting the answer, while standing in the frame of the door to the office.  
  
"Come here boy." Draco slowly unstuck his feet from the spot he had been standing; unaware they were stuck at all.  
  
"Since I only have a few days before the damn Ministry finds me, I was your assurance that you will follow my footsteps to greatness. Keep the treatment of the 'servants' the same, they learn to obey quicker that way. and promise me you will kill that mudblood loving Harry Potter." Lucius' voice quivered on the name. 'Wow he has some feelings.' Draco thought trying not to smirk in the face of his father, he instead told him what he wanted to hear.  
  
"Yes, Sir, I will." He promised in a small voice. Lucius stood up fast and grabbed Draco's hair, pulling his head back, exposing the vulnerable flesh of the front of his neck.  
  
"What was that?" roared Lucius. "YES, Sir, I will do as you wish!" Draco said loudly enough so that a house elf passing by dropped a glass that shattered spilling the contents everywhere, which was starting to burn through the hard wood floors of the second floor hallway.  
  
"Clean that up and repair the damages immediately!" Lucius ordered the elf, then turned back to Draco, much to Draco's dismay. "And you, I don't like that overly-cocky attitude of yours."  
  
With that he hit Draco as hard as he could across the face with his serpent headed cane, causing Draco's head to bleed heavily. Draco's right eye was covered in thick red blood, but he didn't dare to move a muscle.  
  
"Leave."  
  
"Yes, Sir." Draco didn't need to be told twice. As he left the front door he tasted the blood on his lips. He didn't pull his hood up though, with the hope that the rain would wash the blood away. his pure, and as far as Draco was concerned, cursed blood.  
  
* Hermione *  
  
Skimming through the stations on the radio, Hermione couldn't find anything appealing. She was too upset to care about the music anyway, but it was better than the dead silence of her house.  
  
With her parents finally gone, she had time to sneak downstairs for food. She did this whenever her father was gone, asleep, or passed out on the couch from too much drinking. Her father was convinced she was horribly fat, so he only fed her dinner every other day, and besides that meal, she could have as much water as she wanted. That was her eating habits while at this place she was forced to call a home.  
  
She looked at herself in the mirror, and wasn't too pleased with what she saw; the now 16 year old Hermione Granger was frightfully skinny, due to lack of food. Her once frighteningly bushy hair was straight with slight curls at the front and the ends, she had filled out in all the right places, and if she gained some of her weight back, she would look stunning. It was her well-tanned skins speckled in purplish-blue patches that she hated. And she had her father to thank for that as well.  
  
Hermione had on slightly faded jeans, which looked incredibly good on her, with a simple light yellow tank top on, which showed off her tan, along with her too-flat-to-be-human stomach. Her now straight hair was pulled into a matching scrunchie. 'I have to get out of this hellhole,' she thought suddenly, 'my sanity requires it, it might be raining, but at least the weather can show my emotions, even if I can't.' She thought grimly as she grabbed a dark blue windbreaker and headed outside into the downpour.  
  
~Draco~  
  
Trying to keep his thought off of the girl he had wanted since first sight, but was hurtfully mean to too hide it, Draco headed down the path from the Malfoy Manor to the place he went each time he needed to get away. It was a low cliff overlooking a waterfall that ran into a river. He could sit there and stare at the waterfall for hours thinking only about everything wrong in his life or nothing at all. It was completely surrounded by bushes and trees. The entrance cleverly hidden between two blackberry bushes which were now full of plump ripened blackberries. Grabbing a handful, Draco headed into his sanctuary, only to find that he wasn't as alone as he had wanted.  
  
*Hermione *  
  
Hermione had been sitting on a wet rock, thinking about the pale faced blonde boy that she secretly longed for, when she heard the blackberry bushes behind her move. She turned around to see the source of the noise, and was startled as she looked into the face of the tall, handsome, blonde in question, now dressed in green and gray. Draco Malfoy- the object of her desires, only she was forced to hate him, and he, in return, hated her.  
  
"Granger." He said her name, while showing his ever-famous smirk, like it was a puzzle.  
  
"Malfoy" She, unlike Draco, was not smirking, and said his name completely calm and cool.  
  
"What are you doing here Granger? Waiting for your pathetic friends?" Draco had a million questions, and wanted to be nice to her while they were alone, but despite what he wanted, he still chose to be mean to save himself from his father.  
  
" I could ask the same of you, Malfoy, and what I'm doing here is really none of your business." Hermione said, standing from the rock she was sitting on, staring at the waterfall before she was interrupted.  
  
They stood there, staring at each other for a few minutes, which seemed like hours to each of them. Draco decided to brake the silence. Holding his hand out, now stained in purple juice from the berries, he smiled, not smirked, at Hermione and asked with a hint of humor in his voice "Blackberries?"  
  
Hermione raised an eyebrow in suspicion and stared. 'Knowing him they are probably poisoned. or is he really trying to be nice to me? We are alone, there's no outside pressure. wait! What am I thinking?! Malfoy be nice me? I really have been hit too many times, he hates me, not unlike my parents.' she thought harshly.  
  
~*Both*~  
  
"They aren't poisoned ya know." Draco stated after a few more minutes of silence.  
  
"How do I know that?" Hermione replied sharply.  
  
"This is how." With that Draco popped a blackberry into his mouth. With his mouth fuller than it should be he asked Hermione "See?" which came out as "Thee?"  
  
Hermione, realizing that Draco Malfoy was actually being nice to her for once, smiled and laughed (Draco loved to see her smile like that) and reached for the blackberries in Draco's hand. This caused her sleeve to moved up, showing the fresh bruises on her wrist.  
  
Draco was happy that she had let her shield down for him, just this once, but the happiness faded as fast as it had come. Once he saw those ugly bruises, that were so much like the ones his father gave him, his smile faded and he grabbed her arm and demanded "What are those!?"  
  
Hermione tried to pull away but Draco held on tighter to her purple write, making Hermione wince.  
  
"Let go, Malfoy!" Hermione glared at him.  
  
"Its Draco, and I'm not letting go," He declared, shocking himself by saying her first name. "what are those from?"  
  
"Its none of your business, Draco." Saying his name like it was something slimy. Hermione tried to pull away again, only causing him to hold on tighter. "Please, let go!!" Tears falling from Hermiones' eyes, she resorted to begging him.  
  
"I'm not letting go of you until you tell me who did this to you!" Hermione, having enough of this, broke down sobbing into her free hand.  
  
Draco dropped the blackberries in his hand and hastily wiped the juice onto his pant-leg. Draco put his arms around Hermiones' shoulders, his chin resting on the top of her head, comforting her in a quiet voice. "hey, Hermione, it'll be OK, I promise. its OK to cry." Draco didn't care what he was saying as long as she knew that he was trying to help her this time.  
  
Hermione had moved so that she was crying into Dracos' chest. She could hear him talking gently above her, so quietly that she couldn't hear the exact words, and just loud enough for her to know that he really cared. She felt his strong arms on her shoulders and his hands patting her hair. There was a scent on him she couldn't quite name, but it was strangely comforting to her.  
  
Slowly her crying stopped, and she heard some of what Draco was saying; ".I know how you're feeling-" Hermione, shocked looked up and interrupted, "How could you know what its like? Afraid when you hear them.even more when you don't. wondering where they are. where they are hiding to surprise you if you dare to leave your room-"  
  
"You're frightened to death to be in the same room as them. Trying everything in your power to please them and trying not to cry, or show any sign of pain in front of them." Draco finished in a small voice, then pulled his blonde hair back to reveal a blood red cut that had happened earlier that day. He looked down at the ground over Hermiones' shoulder.  
  
Hermione, at a loss for words for the first time in her life, stared. They just stood there in each other's arms, looking into each other's eyes for a long time. When Hermione found her voice, small but at least it was there, she asked "Who does it to you?"  
  
"My father."  
  
"Mine too."  
  
With that, Draco grabbed Hermiones' hand, small compared to his, and led her over to the rock she was sitting on earlier and they sat down. Draco slipped his arm around Hermiones' shoulders and Hermione rested her head on his shoulder. Both of them were feeling the safest they had since the end of the term.  
  
Draco knew that he would probably never get this chance again, they had a break from the cruel world and he couldn't let it pass by them without doing anything. "Hermione.?" he whispered.  
  
"Yes?" Answered a small voice to his left. He lifted her head up gently with both hands and ran his fingers over her soft cheeks, drying the tears she had missed. The rain had drenched her so much that it didn't help much, but it was an excuse to show her his gentle side and how much he loved her. He looked into her amber eyes and saw an emotion he had only seen in the mirror, in his own silver-blue eyes, understanding how she was feeling completely.  
  
He felt he needed to explain everything to her, knowing now that she would understand him as he did her. "I don't hate you, ya know" Draco blurted out, "my father is against muggles and forced me to do the same. Knowing he has spies everywhere, I had to be mean to you, Potter, and Weasley, or suffer the consequences," he swallowed hard and Hermione felt him shudder before he continued ". I'm jealous actually. You three are so close and I can't tell anyone anything for fear of my father finding out.  
  
A few tears escaped his eyes, despite how hard he tried to keep them in. Hermione looked at Dracos' face as his cruel side went away and he was actually. human. Draco leaned in close to Hermione, whispered " I love you Hermione Granger." And kissed her gently on the lips.  
  
They sat there kissing softly for a while, then as if realizing what they were doing, both stopped and stared at each other, questioning each other with their eyes. Hermione smiled at Draco and whispered, "I love you Draco Malfoy." And he smiled as well.  
  
"Funny what a few blackberries and bruises can cause, huh?" Draco teased. They laughed quietly together. Putting his arm back around Hermione, he looked at the waterfall. Hermione followed his gaze and stared at it as well.  
  
Neither Hermione, nor Draco noticed the rain stop. They didn't notice when the birds started singing happily at the setting sun just to the right of the waterfall. Neither cared how late it was, or how mad their fathers would be. The rest of the world went away for a few minutes, and they were happy to ignore it. They didn't know when they would have the chance to be this close again.  
  
When the term started again, this would be nothing more than dream, or a memory. Like the soft silent snow in December or a whisper on the autumn wind.and no one else could ever know about it.  
  
A/N: Hey! Hope you liked, I'm working on a Ron and Cho fic right now, I had to do something a little different, and I'll be writing a humor fic shortly! R&R and tell me what you think! 


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